Transcontinental
by oleanderedits
Summary: Glenn is working the Transcontinental Rail Line and catches the eye of his foreman. (30DayOTP Prompt Challenge Day 3)


Glenn hunched his shoulders and adjusted his hat. It would do nothing to deter that uneasy feeling of being watched by the younger of the Dixon brothers, but it made him feel a little better. Like he could at least hide his face from him even if he couldn't hide his body. The man was always watching him. As if he thought Glenn was trouble.

While he didn't particularly like either of the Dixon brothers, he gave a silent prayer that the other would show up soon. Merle always started in on Daryl if he caught Daryl staring. Accused his brother of having yellow fever and being too long without a woman to stare at the railway men the way he did. That always riled Daryl up. Distracted him for a few days at least. Once it had made him keep his distance for a week. Glenn really didn't need the attention when he was already treated with something of a cold shoulder from the other workers for pretending to be Chinese.

Which he wasn't doing, but none of the white Americans cared about the difference. They called him slant eyes and rice eater and chink. All Glenn had done was stop trying to correct them. The people directly on the same crew as he was understood, treated him in a distant but friendly manner. It was the other crews that made a fuss. And since Glenn was the tea distributor for the whole line, he regularly got shit from them.

The Dixon brothers were the unfortunate foremen. Merle was, anyway. Daryl just sort of followed him around and took up watch duties when Merle was busy elsewhere. Sat on his horse for hours, walking along the line and making sure the twenty man crew his brother was directly in charge of didn't get into trouble or waste time. When he wasn't watching Glenn.

Glenn tried to keep out of his hair. Keep himself busy and running up and down the line between crews so he didn't have to be around Daryl. For three months he'd been working his ass off in that way. And for three months, Merle had been unknowingly aiding him in keeping his brother at bay.

But luck had to run out at some point and it seemed that today was the day it would for Glenn.

"Hey! Chinaman!" Daryl barked as Glenn tried to hurry past him back to the sleeping camp for another two buckets of tea to bring around. He pulled up short and glanced up at the man on his horse. Was met with what he suspected was an attempt at a smile, "Yeah. You. With the water duty."

Glenn turned to face the man, but ducked his head, keeping his face hidden as best he could under the brim of his hat, "Yes, Mister Dixon?"

Daryl leaned forward and down, reached out and flipped his hat off his head. He was grinning full out now, "You don't keep your hair long."

"No, Mister Dixon," he agreed, fighting the natural urge to look up.

"Ain't that against your kind's rules?" Daryl's fingers hung down along side his ankle while he laid himself over the front of his saddle. They twitched like they needed to do something but couldn't figure out what.

Glenn gave a shake of his head, "No, Mister Dixon. It is tradition, but it is not a rule."

He received a grunted 'huh' before those fingers snaked their way back up as Daryl straightened himself in his saddle. He sat there, staring down at Glenn (always staring) for several minutes. The sun beating down with his gaze, burning into him. Searing his awareness as surely as the punishing light would sear his skin if he did not retrieve his hat.

"You're off water duty for the day," Daryl finally said in a slow drawl. The fingers that Glenn could just barely see at the top of his vision drummed for a moment on the man's thigh. "I need a fast runner to send a message to the end of the line. Head over to my tent and wait there. Anyone asks, you send them my way."

Glenn bowed his head and backed up a few steps as Daryl unceremoniously started walking his horse back toward the work crew. He waited until the man was a good twenty feet away before searching out his hat. He let the camp cook know what was up and received a look of sympathy. The end of the line was a three day jog to where the blasting crews were trying to bring down the inside of a mountain before the rest of the track layers met up with them. It was not a pleasant trip.

He ended up waiting for Daryl to show up for three hours. For someone who needed a message sent so urgently, he certainly had no problem taking his time getting it ready to go. The day was half over when he finally got there. Glenn was thirsty and starving and hoping he'd be able to get a meal before he was sent off.

Daryl surprised him by walking in with two plates of rice and dried fish. One was set on the desk Glenn had studiously avoided going near and the other was held out to him, "Sorry it took so long. Merle was got his ass put in the lock up in that town south of here. Was hoping the hour ride would keep him out of trouble, but..." He shrugged.

"Thank you," was all Glenn could really think to say. The oddly open way Daryl was talking was unusual for any of the foremen to be with their crews. The food he'd brought in even more so. The white folks usually kept to meat and potatoes. The Irish to boiled cabbage and potato stew. They didn't eat the food the Chinese crews prepared. It was, all in all, very surreal to see the other man sit down and plow into the meal like he'd done it a thousand times.

Glenn sat down and started to eat as well. When he looked at the plate, really looked at it, he realized chopsticks had been stabbed into the rice for him to use. He gulped and quickly pulled them out, speaking before his mind caught up with his mouth and could stop him, "You shouldn't do that."

Daryl's eyes snapped up and he squinted hard, "Do what?"

"The chopsticks," Glenn answered, voice barely audible. "Put them in the rice like that. It is rude."

The man chewed on his fish slowly, head tilted to the side. He took another mouthful as his brows scrunched in outright confusion. With a mostly full mouth, he asked, "Why?"

Glenn cringed, pulling his shoulders in and making himself smaller. He really hoped he wouldn't get in trouble for talking back. He hoped the man wouldn't be offended by his answer and kept it as simple as he could, "They look like incense sticks that one gives in offering to honor the dead."

Daryl's eyebrows raised, but the only answer Glenn got was another grunted 'huh' before the man went back to his meal. He did not speak again until they were both done. This, too, was in stark contrast to what Glenn knew of how the white men ate. He'd seen them around their fires enough to know they liked to be boisterous and talkative. Often very, very loud. It was not like dinner conversation didn't happen in the work camp, but it was never as 'lively' as the foremen and their kind.

The next words Daryl spoke were an offer for water. Which Glenn once again said a thank you for. He had to guess that a half hour had passed by that point and still Daryl did not seem to be in such a hurry to get that correspondence taken care of. It made him wonder if all men like him were so uncaring when the time they wasted was not their own.

"You wanted me to take a message?" Glenn eventually gained the courage to ask as the half hour started to creep closer to the hour mark.

Daryl leaned back in his chair and shook his head, "Nope."

Glenn raised his eyes. Daryl met them. His lips stretched out into a wide, lazy grin as he looked Glenn up and down in the way that made it very clear Merle's bitching had not missed the mark. Heat darkened Glenn's cheeks and he looked down, breathing becoming difficult for a moment.

"Well look at that," Daryl mused like he'd been wondering about that very thing, "those cheeks really can get red. And not a drop of liquor in you, neither."

Glenn's hands tightened into fists on his lap and his heart was suddenly pounding in his ears. Daryl stood, the sound of his chair scrapping back attested to that without the need to look. His steps brought him around the desk and behind Glenn. Hands came down on his shoulders.

Those hands then slid until it was arms hanging over him and Daryl's breath on the back of his neck, "The way I figure it, no one's gonna expect you to be anywhere near here for the next six days. You could stay here the whole time and never be missed." One of those arms bent back and a hand came to rest very gently on his cheek. "Wouldn't that be nice? Almost a whole week of paid work that you don't got to do a thing for."

"Nothing?" He was stupid to ask it. The way Daryl's nose was nuzzling into his hair and fingers tracing his jaw in lazy lines said 'nothing' was most certainly something. He expected the man to turn that gentle touch into pain.

Daryl just shook his head, though, voice so quiet, like all the bluster and bravado had suddenly flown out of him now that he was there. Like he just couldn't go through with the rest of whatever he'd been planning, "Not a thing. Jus' want to look at you. Ain't had anyone so pretty near me in a long time."

Glenn gulped and sucked in a shuttering breath and Daryl shook his head again, trying to sooth him, "Shh... no. Don't be scared. I ain't gonna do what you're thinkin' I am. I ain't. I promise. You don't got to work for it. I'll let you go if you don't want to stay. Tell 'em I changed my mind about the message if you'd rather."

He pulled himself back, arms dropping away, out of Glenn's sight. His boots banged heavily against the wood slats that kept the mud from his bed and his desk. They stopped somewhere behind Glenn and was followed by the sound of something heavy dropping into a pile of something softer.

"Go on, get," Daryl murmured, sighing out the words.

Glenn turned in his chair to look at him and found the man in his cot, facing away. He'd gone and curled up on himself and was halfheartedly pushing his boots off. Glenn found his eyes drawn briefly back to the door and it's promise of freedom from the strangeness of the man behind him. Then they moved to the desk and the two plates. The lunch he didn't have to bring. Back to the man who had pulled away instead of trying to force something.

He had two very clear choices. Go back outside and rejoin the camp. Spend his hours under the hot sun running tea all day. Or he could stay in the tent, muggy though it was, and rest. Let a man look at him while he was there, but otherwise have his days to himself for a while. Get paid to do next to nothing.

"I don't have to do anything," Glenn heard himself say. "As long as I stay inside this tent, I can have six days of pay without any work."

Daryl's head turned, one blue eye barely visible as he gave a single, slow nod.

Glenn stood and walked toward him, giving the man a more careful look over than he'd ever had before. From the dark hair at the top of his head, to the shape of his jaw, to how broad his shoulders were even when he tried to pull them in. Glenn stopped just short of the cot, leaned in, met those bright blue eyes that in the span of a few seconds had gone from confident to just as scared as Glenn had been.

He smiled at the man that now looked like he was cowering. Perhaps he was. He'd just let a big secret slip. A secret that could make his own people decide he wasn't worth allowing to live. And he was willing to let the only one that knew that secret walk out the door. Glenn had power over him now.

"I want the cot," Glenn said. "When I sleep. I want the cot. You may have the floor."

Daryl's eyes slipped away, staring at the pillow he was clutching, "I can do that."

Glenn straightened, grinning brightly, "You bring meals and water. You bring water for me to bathe with. Those are the rules."

"An' you'll stay? Let me look at you?" Daryl asked, voice hopeful, though he didn't dare to look at Glenn just yet.

"Yes," he agreed, sitting down on the edge of the cot. "You may look."

Daryl lifted his head and chewed his bottom lip, "Could I... touch? Just your hair, maybe?"

Glenn folded his hands in his lap and continued to study the man, "I will think about it. Until I have come to a decision, you may only look. Okay?"

"Okay."

...

Five days later, only one day left before he had to 'return', Glenn thought to himself that it had been a very nice vacation. And perhaps Daryl would be open to sending him off on another message run sometime soon. Maybe some place even further out. The man had proven to have a very gentle touch that Glenn found he rather enjoyed.


End file.
